“I have done that, thank you. He will stay with you, and because he does, I do, as well.”
“Your uncle means much to you.”
Yuu'han raised his enigmatic gaze to lock fully on her own, something the Mang were reluctant to do unless angry—or very, very sincere. “I call him uncle,” Yuu'han said, quite softly. “I call him that because he was never married to my mother, and thus I have no right to call him 'father.' Nevertheless, he is the one who begat me. And when my mother died and her clan refused her orphan, Brother Horse drew me into his clan. Few would have done that; most would have let the mother's clan dispose of the child.”
“Dispose?”
“The custom is to leave an unwanted child in the desert for the gods to take their mercy on.” He glanced away at last, having impressed upon her what he wanted to.
Hezhi looked to Tsem and Ngangata for support; the halfling nodded to himself, but Tsem appeared confused, perhaps not following the entire conversation. Neither of them gave her any clue as to how she should respond to Yuu'han. “Why do you tell me this now?” she finally asked.
“So that if my une—” Yuu'han paused and began again. “So that if Brother Horse and I are both slain, you will know how to sing to our ghosts. In death I may be spoken of as his son.” He smiled wryly. “Understand me, this is no demand. My sword is yours, because Brother Horse is with you. I merely request this of you.”
“I would rather promise that you will not be slain,” Hezhi remarked.
“Do not promise me what is not in your power,” Yuu'han warned. “Do not insult me.”
“I will not insult you, cousin,” Hezhi assured him. “If you are both slain, I shall do as you ask—provided I survive.”
“I say the same,” Ngangata assured him.
“Thank you. It is good.” Seemingly content, Yuu'han dropped back to where Brother Horse rode.
Shortly they began climbing again, but it was to be a brief ascent They mounted up out of the valley, and Hezhi realized then just how high they were; She'leng walled off most of the sky—they had scarcely begun ascending it—but even the valley they rode in was lofty, overlooking the folded layers of forest marching off from them.
Karak stood in his saddle. “Follow now,” he said. “I grow impatient, and one more obstacle remains.”
“What's that?”
“Some fifty Mang warriors await at the entrance to Erikwer, the place we seek.”
“Fifty Mang?” Ngangata said, taking in the remaining warriors. “That is no small threat.”
“For you, perhaps. For me, if I try to maintain my disguise. But my Lord Balat is slow to waken, and I am certain now that he sleeps.” He turned to them, and his eyes were blazing now. Many of the men who followed him seemed taken a bit aback, uncertain.
“Know all of you who did not that I am Karak, the Raven, who made the earth and stole the sun to light it. This and many other things have I done for Humankind, for you are my adopted children. Many malign my intentions—” He paused and looked significantly at Ngangata. “—but you will find no tale of me that does not ultimately speak of my love and service to your kind, even in defiance of my Lord. You have all ridden with me, some knowing me, some not, to this place. You have fought and died so that I might preserve my identity until the time came to strike; that time is now, but we must hurry. I fly ahead to dispose of the brave but misguided warriors who yet stand before us; no more of you need die. But when I uncloak, when my power stands revealed, my Lord Balati will begin to wake from slumber. We must slay his Brother before that happens. Slaying him we free the land from a terrible burden and an even more terrible threat.”
“And you from a great guilt!” Brother Horse shouted.
Karak leveled his yellow gaze at the Mang. “I freely admit my fault in the matter. Even such as I can make a mistake.”
“It was no mistake,” Brother Horse shouted heatedly. “It was caprice, like most of what you do.”
Karak regarded the old man silently for a long moment.
“Were you there?” he asked softly. “Were any of you there, when the Changeling was unleashed, or do you just repeat the rumors my enemies have circulated for five millennia?“ He glared around at them. ”Well?”
“Enough!” Hezhi shouted. “Do what you must, Blackgod, and I will follow. Do you need any of the rest of them?”
Karak was still glaring angrily. “No,” he answered.
“Then go.”
For an instant longer, he remained Sheldu; and then, like a cloak turned inside out, he was suddenly a bird. At that instant, the wind rose. He beat his black wings up to a heaven now thick with gray clouds. When he was a speck, the trees began to shudder with the force of the wind.
Some hesitated, but when Hezhi kneed Dark forward, Ngangata and Tsem came after. Qwen Shen and Bone Eel followed closely, and after a moment's hesitation, all the rest.
In the middle distance, lightning began to strike and thunder to sound, a noise like the air itself shearing in halves. First one strike, then another, and then a crashing and flickering of blue light that raged continuously.
When they broke from the forest into the vast meadow, the thunder had ceased. They found the great black bird standing on a blackened corpse, pecking at its eyes. The meadow was littered with burnt and broken men. A few horses raced about aimlessly, eyes rolling.
As horrific as the sight was, Hezhi had become numb to death; what drew her attention and held it was not the corpses but the hole. It gaped in the center of the meadow like the very mouth of the earth itself, a nearly perfectly round pit that even a powerful bowshot might not cross the diameter of.
The Raven became a man, a black-cloaked man with pale skin.
“That is Erikwer,” he said. “That is the source of the Changeling, his birth—and his death.” His birdlike eyes sparkled with unconcealed glee.
“What do we do?” Hezhi asked, her heart suddenly thumping despite all of her earlier bluster and confidence.
“Why, we must descend, of course,” Karak said.
PERKAR ran desperately, Harka flapping in a sheath on his back. Without the Huntress to direct them, the host was slowly dispersing, returning to whatever haunts or fell places they issued from. They didn't bother him; she must have set some sign upon him they recognized.
But he would never reach Hezhi and the others in time, and that drove him madder each moment, each heartbeat he had to understand what Moss told him.
“Can you give me more strength, help me run faster?” he asked Harka.
“No. That is not the nature of my glamour, as you should know by now. ”
“Yes. You only keep me alive so that I can properly appreciate my mistakes.”
“ What you run toward now could very well end that little problem of yours. ”
“So be it.”
I thought you had learned fear. ”
“I have. Learned it and relearned it. It makes no difference now.”
“The Blackgod will do you no harm unless you attack him. ”
“It's moot, Harka, if we don't get there in time.”
A movement caught his attention in the wood, something large and four-legged coming toward him. He whirled, blade bared in an instant.
“Not an enemy, ” Harka said.
Perkar saw that it was not. It was a stallion, and more precisely, it was Sharp Tiger.
The stallion paced up to him and stopped, an arm's length away.
“Hello, brother,” Perkar said softly. “Let me make you a deal. You let me ride you, and I will slay he who killed your cousin.”
The horse stared at him impassively. Perkar approached, sheathed Harka, and took a deep breath. The beast was unsaddled; Perkar had long ago given up trying to ride him. Neither, in fact, did he have a bridle, but if the animal would accept him on its back, he could find a bridle and saddle from one of the dead beasts being devoured by the Hunt.
He blew out the breath and leapt upon Sharp Tiger's back, knotted his fist into the thick hair of the stallion's mane.